Hey, so I live in a really bad neighborhood here and I see people walking around clearly hopped on some seriously bad drugs at least a couple times a week. I was wondering if anyone might help my analyse the behaviour and name the drug.
The consisent pattern I've noticed is this really cartoonish, exagerrated motion - the people aren't really in-your-face, loud, or smelly (like drunks usually are), but they kind of flop around in what seems like a tragic parody of 'taking a casual stroll' or 'just pulling my pants up', walk in the middle of the street, sometimes talk to themselves, angle arms and legs oddly, etc etc.
My theory is crack, but it's only because a) it's not alcohol or marijuana, and b) I expect heroin users to by lying down instead of walking aroud.
posted 13 years ago
by calimehtar

calimehtar: tweakers maybe?
Back in my student days I used to walk through a really bad neighborhood on my way to class, and often thought that seeing people who had been physically ravaged by years of drug abuse might make a better more effective anti-drug propaganda than the latest variation on "just say no."
But then the idea of taking people who clearly have had a hard road of it, and making a spectacle of them, doesn't sit right with me either.
posted 13 years ago
by ambrosia

Where's the page that shows what 10 years of jail will do to you?
posted 13 years ago
by orococo

calimehtar, that's called "doing the chicken" and it's from crystal meth, horrendously bad stuff.
posted 13 years ago
by islander

Making a spectacle of people who are drug-ravaged would be a better approach than the "just say no" campaign. The victims' eyes could be blanked out to protect their identities.
posted 13 years ago
by bobbo11

I would say that the drug doing the most damage to this person is the smack. crack fucks your brain up worse than it fucks your body. Oh, and it destroys your organs too.
All of the acid-heads I ever met looked incredibly young for their physical age. Of course, they were all shot away upstairs..
posted 13 years ago
by Nostrildamus

Yup. That's meth. I live 5 blocks from Meth Central in the west End of Vancouver.
posted 13 years ago
by moneyjane

seems like a great way to lose weight.
On the streets in Tampa they call it the stemfast diet.
posted 13 years ago
by Sullivan

I'd say heroin is the culprit in the OP. It's not the heroin itself that does that, but it kills your appetite for as long as you're on it, and that's sometimes days. Junkies are usually malnourished.
posted 13 years ago
by pyrrthon1

One picture that always stayed in my mind was when the local police came to my high school and showed us pictures of a guy whose arms where covered in scabs from where he'd been picking to find a blood vesel. Just completely poka-dotted.
Does anyone know the statistics of sending a junkie to prison versus government support of their habit?
posted 13 years ago
by Restless

Profoundly sad pictures.
Prisoners of the insane war on drugs.
posted 13 years ago
by islander

Prisoners of the insane war on drugs.
Prisoners of their insane war on their own bodies, also.
posted 13 years ago
by Wolof

as far as I understand Heroin is not damaging to the body and addicts with a supply of pharmacutical Heroin can live for many years with no problems. Its the impurities and street life which accompanies the junkie which cause all the ugliness
posted 13 years ago
by criticalbill

You guys are jumping to conclusions that it was drugs that did this to her. Cut away all the conjecture, and we know two things for sure:
1) her health deteriorated
2) cops arrested her many times
Therefore:
Cops cause health problems.
posted 13 years ago
by Mr. Knickerbocker

You are ignoring prima facie evidence that she's a crackhead - namely that her cheeks are sucked in, from all that drawing on the pipe
posted 13 years ago
by criticalbill

My guess is that she was losing her teeth, especially the molars, as well as losing weight. (Gossip had it, some years ago, that movie stars would have some molars pulled to accentuate the cheek bones by sucking in the cheeks below.) I'd guess that getting dental care isn't a priority when you're trying to score whatever your really addictive drug of choice is, especially if the choice is between buying drugs and paying a dentist when you can't afford both.
Don't get me wrong - I do feel bad for her
posted 13 years ago
by path

Hmm... I feel like I've seen these before, but in a different context... Like the "moral" of the story before was about streetwalking, not drugs. Anyone else?
posted 13 years ago
by Nickdanger

Well in a lot of cases drug addiction and street walking go hand in hand so I guess these photos could be used to highlight the pitfalls of either/both.
posted 13 years ago
by Bondurant